Saharay Festival of Purulia

in Module

Published on: 18 June 2018

Suvadip Chakraborty

Suvadip Chakraborty is a community media worker with Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication from University of Calcutta. He firmly believes that if we believe in ourselves, together we can change the society. He has been working with MANT in the rural areas of West Bengal. He has attended the Global SBCC Summit at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and also presented at the 4th eNGO Challenge at New Delhi. He is also associated with a Bengali Little Magazine and recently had his first book of poetry published.

This module is on the Saharay festival of the Santhal Community of Purulia district of West Bengal, the most important tradition of the community. Aggressive modernisation has resulted in the Santhals rapidly losing their ancient culture inherited from their ancestors. As the Santhalis believe in 'shruti' or 'remembering through hearing', there is very little written material on them. This module is an effort to document a part of this community’s cultural heritage along with their songs, music and folklore.